Internal NASA memo: "Jesco passed away today at ~11am. He died at home. He had flu like symptoms for the last week. He is survived by his wife Ursula. This was unexpected and a shock to everyone. Ursula is still making plans and will likely want a simple remembrance. Sam will coordinate and we will keep you informed of plans. Jesco was a tremendous representative of NASA. Jesco will be missed. His passing is a reminder to all of us that each day is precious."

For Star Trek geeks, von Puttkamer served as special science advisor on the first Star Trek film, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Among others, Puttkamer came up with the theory behind the faster-than-light warp speed drive, and the slogan "The Human Adventure is Just Beginning," according to Memory Alpha.

Puttkamer also wrote the short story "The Sleeping God" for the 1978 anthology The New Voyages 2.

Robert PearlmanEditor

Posts: 27328From: Houston, TXRegistered: Nov 1999

posted 12-27-2012 11:41 PM
From Wikipedia:

In 1962 he left Germany for the United States, where he joined Wernher von Braun's rocket team at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama as an engineer during the Apollo Program.[1] He received United States citizenship in 1967. At NASA Headquarters, Washington D.C. since 1974, he first served as a NASA program manager in charge of long-range planning of deep space manned activities (flights beyond Earth orbit) and he was an ardent advocate of manned space exploration and SETI.

From 2009 until his death, Puttkamer provided management leadership at NASA Headquarters on the International Space Station (ISS), for which he held special responsibilities including the daily on-orbit operations. He was the author behind the daily ISS On-Orbit Status Reports.

GACspaceguyMember

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posted 12-28-2012 05:04 AM
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posted 12-28-2012 06:53 PM
Met Jesco at a Star Trek Convention in 1978 in NYC, where he was speaking on the then upcoming ST TMP. Signed my Trek Tech manual across from the signature of James "Scotty" Doohan, and he said he had never signed one before and got a kick out of it. Great guy.

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posted 12-28-2012 07:40 PM
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moorougeMember

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posted 12-31-2012 09:35 AM
If memory serves me correctly he was involved also in the early discussions with the Soviets that led eventually to the ASTP mission.

Jay ChladekMember

Posts: 2211From: Bellevue, NE, USARegistered: Aug 2007

posted 01-03-2013 07:43 PM

quote:Originally posted by moorouge:If memory serves me correctly he was involved also in the early discussions with the Soviets that led eventually to the ASTP mission.

The name didn't come up in my own ASTP research. The early direct talks between NASA and the Soviets were primarily with a few of the high ranking managers and some of the engineering minds from the original Langley Space Task Group with most of that delegation coming from Houston rather than Huntsville.

George Hardy (Chief of Program Engineering and Integration for Skylab) from Huntsville in those first delegations to give some briefings to the Soviets on Skylab according to the official NASA history I've read. But ASTP was primarily a Houston show with Marshall providing some hardware support.

It wouldn't surprise me though if Jesco was involved in Skylab stuff before he went to NASA headquarters in DC since that was Marshall's primary post Apollo program.